New Bachmann DCC equipped set running on Xmas morning. Old train and new. Can you spot the diff?

When I was younger, the big thing to get for Christmas morning was a train set. I would pore over the Consumer’s Distributing catalog or the Sears Catalog “Wish Book” and always circle the Bachmann train sets in hopes of becoming the next engineer. One year my mom did buy me an excellent over/under oval set with a CN rail badged locomotive and a few cars.

Last year we had a new hot water heater installed. It runs on Propane and has a fancy sensor that will shut the unit down if it ever senses flammable gas in the area. Yesterday we had a plumbing leak and while the plumber was using tons of gas to repair it, he must have set off the Intelli-Vent gas control lockout.

So now I have a water heater that won’t turn on. The manual clearly states that the unit needs to be reset by a service technician. Ya right!

Further google-fu led me to this bit of info that is priceless.

Flammable Vapors Sensed (FVS) Reset Procedure

After a flammable vapor lockout has been initiated, a manual reset must be performed to restore operation. The following should be done by a qualified service person after the hazard has been removed:

1 Manual reset is accomplished by first, turning off power to the water heater for 10 seconds.

2 Restore the power to the water heater.

3 Within 10 seconds of restoring power, press the two temperature adjust button simultaneously until the left (green) “Vacation” LED begins to blink (approx. 5 second delay). Once the Vacation LED begins to blink, release both buttons.

4 Again, within 10 seconds, press both temperature adjust buttons simultaneously until the Vacation LED is on steady (approx. 5 second delay).

5 Release the two buttons, the microcomputer will clear the FVS lock-out and normal operation will then be restored.

I was recently introduced to the 3CX phone system and LOVE the fact that they give it away for free, with a 2 line limitation. Not a problem for this cheap tech! I went ahead and downloaded their package and proceeded to install it on my windows server.

It’s pretty neat, allowing me to make “free” soft phone calls between here and there. But didn’t feel right without a hardware phone. Enter eBay! I found a set of 3 Cisco 7961 phones with just minor screen damage for $50 shipped.

After delving into the nuances of Cisco IP phones I discovered this one was pretty much set to do what it wanted.

After much poking around I discovered that presenting the phone a tftp server by setting option 66 to the ip of my 3cx server did the trick!

I can tell when spring is in the air. it’s not because we are walking about like zombies due to the daylight savings time change. Nope it’s because the roads are drying up and the street sweepers are awaiting their assault. My mind turns to motorcycles and how I can get tooling down the road on two wheels again. Last year I traded my perfectly good and working 1981 Honda CM400 for a 2000 CBR 600. A racing machine. A crotch rocket. Unfortunately for me I lost interest and it sat not rocketing anything. Until today when I finally brought the beast to life.
Oh street sweeper, where are you!?

If you’re reading this, you can see I changed the blog theme. I was doing some admin work and noticed that this blog was hacked. Cleaning that up made me finally switch from the default WP theme circa 2006. You’re all welcome.

July 28, 2012. That is the date associated with the line in my pilot logbook that marks the last flight I have made as PIC. I’m ashamed to admit that. Me, the guy who blogged all about the challenges of flight training. The guy who painstakingly broke down concepts and posted them here like I was some sort of expert and I don’t even use them any more.

That’s it. My entire career as a pilot, broken down line by line in a logbook and brought to life in this very blog has become paralyzed. I could give plenty of reasons for this. I sold the airplane immediately after that demo flight. A mere seven thousand Canadian dollars in trade for the freedom and joy that little Piper Cherokee provided. It was also a trade from the upcoming mechanical issues that always occur with old machines. I would say that I was not using it so I should let it go on to someone who would. Continue reading No Fly Zone

As per the article here You can fix unable to create folders in IE, or being unable to create a folder in your favorites by running the command below. Relates to the security level of IE being run in protected mode not having the correct permissions to create folders under the user profile.